GREEN WASHED

Why We Can't Buy Our Way to a Green Planet

Justmeans.com sustainable development editor Pierre-Louis takes a hard look at the new wave of buying “green” products and the hidden detriments behind such seemingly helpful practices.

Most scientists agree that “humanity has wrought enough environmental damage to bring our continued future (in any significant measure) into real question, unless we fundamentally change our relationship with the planet.” This fact has raised concerns over the increasing toxicity of many production practices used to manufacture “green” products sold these days. The author examines the clothing industry, food production, beauty products, the car industry, water bottles and water consumption and green building technologies. What she uncovers will have readers questioning the ethics and methods behind large companies that push “organic” and “sustainable” products while ignoring the hidden costs to the environment and the future of the planet. Confusing and misleading labels, hybrid cars and biofuels, the endless stream of plastic that fills our landfills and oceans and the dangers behind “clean coal”—these are just a few of the topics Pierre-Louis explores. The United States has become a nation of consumers of primarily disposable products: “When we get bored with what we have, we simply go out and buy a new one.” By engaging in this course of action, we ignore the simple fact that “we consume resources at rates faster than they can repair themselves, a practice that is inherently unsustainable regardless of how you slice it.”

A slim but revealing investigation of how “purchasing green can be good, but buying less is better.”